The Circle Jerk

I entered the arena heavily long, thinking BEAR MEAT was on the menu. Joe Biden’s NFP numbers scared me off — made me cower in my book of longs and provoked me to quickly EVACUATE markets and hedge. The heart attack drop at the open coupled with the early morning recovery caused me to look introspect and ask myself: do you want to be associated with these people?”

The answer was and is inexorably no — so I began a campaign of selling short the single best sector in the market: the semiconductors. I swooned into them and methodically added more to it as the time passed. As markets gained a footing, I hedged against my burgeoning shorts with some longs, rentals if you will. I sold most of them for profit — and kept adding to the semiconductor short, which was bound to make me a great fortune.

By mid-afternoon, markets began to take on a pornographic undertone, as the hedonists jumped out of their outer garments and buy stocks and take advantage of all of the deals. Once again, I looked inward decided that I’d hold the line and begin a crusade against the semiconductor longs — perhaps dedicate my life to it and work tirelessly to disrupt their schemes. I had increased the size of my shorts to 15.5% of my overall portfolio — selling all of my longs — leaving me naked in front of a cast of perverts, degenerates, and mountebanks.

As the final hour came upon me, I had visions of the future — dark clouds and plumes of fire billowing atop the charred remains of the sinners. I bought an array of longs near 52 week highs and then bought a 15.5% sized position in $TZA in addition to my $SOXS making me King of the Bears.

Alas, this story didn’t end the way I wanted and my passions ran cold 2 mins to the bell, when I closed out my semiconductor shorts and plans to dedicate my life in a crusade against them — taking a $10,000 loss in the process. It all seemed very maudlin to me, as I reflected upon the scotch I was about to ingest.

I did keep the $TZA, and some longs, 46% cash to play with on Monday. For the week, I made +0.17% — much better than the overall market — but not on par with the excellence in trading that I’ve been accustomed to ever since I decided to take up the avocation when I was just 10 years old.

Into next week and beyond, I look forward to increasing my courage and the overall conviction of my bias — which is, at the moment, grotesquely indecisive.